Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History
This volume seeks to study the connections between two well-studied epochs in Chinese history: the mid-imperial era of the Tang and Song (ca. 800-1270) and the late imperial era of the late Ming and Qing (1550-1900). Both eras are seen as periods of explosive change, particularly in economic activity, characterized by the emergence of new forms of social organization and a dramatic expansion in knowledge and culture. The task of establishing links between these two periods has been impeded by a lack of knowledge of the intervening Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). This historiographical "black hole" has artificially interrupted the narrative of Chinese history and bifurcated it into two disti...
State Power in China, 900-1325
This collection provides new ways to understand how state power was exercised during the overlapping Liao, Song, Jin, and Yuan dynasties. Through a set of case studies, State Power in China, 900-1325 examines large questions concerning dynastic legitimacy, factional strife, the relationship between the literati and the state, and the value of centralization. How was state power exercised? Why did factional strife periodically become ferocious? Which problems did reformers seek to address? Could subordinate groups resist the state? How did politics shape the sources that survive? The nine essays in this volume explore key elements of state power, ranging from armies, taxes, and imperial patronage to factional struggles, officials’ personal networks, and ways to secure control of conquered territory. Drawing on new sources, research methods, and historical perspectives, the contributors illuminate the institutional side of state power while confronting evidence of instability and change—of ways to gain, lose, or exercise power.
The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History
"The ten essays in this volume aim to restore continuity to that historical narrative by filling in the gap between mid-imperial and late imperial China."--BOOK JACKET.
The Chinese Love Story from the Tenth to the Fourteenth Century
Love stories formed a major part of the classical short story genre in China from as early as the eighth century, when men of letters began to write about romantic encounters. In later centuries, such stories provided inspiration for several new literary genres. While much scholarly attention has been focused on the short story of both the medieval and late imperial eras, comparatively little work has been attempted on the interim stage, the Song and Yuan dynasties, which spanned some five hundred years from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries. Yet this was a crucial developmental period for many forms of narrative literature—so much so that any understanding of late imperial narrative s...
Taxing Heaven's Storehouse
Tea growing was a prosperous industry in Sichuan when Wang Anshi's New Policies created a Tea Market Agency to buy up Sichuanese tea and trade it to Tibetan tribesmaen for cavalry horses. At first the highly autonomous agency not only acquired the needed horses but made a profit. After the Junchen conquest of Noth China, however, market realities changed and the combined Tea and Horse Agency's once successful policies ruined tea farmers, failed to meet quotas for horses, and ran a deficit. Paul J. Smith details the workings of Sichuan tea farming and the tea trade, examines the geopolitical factors that forced the Song to buy horses, and graphically describes the difficulties of driving them...
The Cambridge History of China: Volume 5, Sung China, 960-1279 AD
This is the second of two volumes on the Sung Dynasty, which together provide a comprehensive history of China from the fall of the T'ang Dynasty in 907 to the Mongol conquest of the Southern Sung in 1279. With contributions from leading historians in the field, Volume 5, Part Two paints a complex portrait of a dynasty beset by problems and contradictions, but one which, despite its military and geopolitical weakness, was nevertheless economically powerful, culturally brilliant, socially fluid and the most populous of any empire in global history to that point. In this much anticipated addition to the series, the authors survey key themes across ten chapters, including government, economy, society, religion, and thought to provide an authoritative and topical treatment of a profound and significant period in Chinese history.
The Rise and Fall of Imperial China
How social networks shaped the imperial Chinese state China was the world’s leading superpower for almost two millennia, falling behind only in the last two centuries and now rising to dominance again. What factors led to imperial China’s decline? The Rise and Fall of Imperial China offers a systematic look at the Chinese state from the seventh century through to the twentieth. Focusing on how short-lived emperors often ruled a strong state while long-lasting emperors governed a weak one, Yuhua Wang shows why lessons from China’s history can help us better understand state building. Wang argues that Chinese rulers faced a fundamental trade-off that he calls the sovereign’s dilemma: a...
Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China
Huizong was an exceptional emperor who lived through momentous times. A man of many talents, he wrote poetry and created his own distinctive calligraphy style; collected paintings, calligraphies, and antiquities on a large scale; promoted Daoism; and involved himself in the training of court artists, the layout of gardens, and reforms of music and medicine. The quarter century when Huizong ruled is just as fascinating. The greatly enlarged scholar-official class had come into its own but was deeply divided by factional strife. The long struggle between the Chinese state and its northern neighbors entered a new phase when Song proved unable to defend itself against the newly emergent Jurchen state of Jin. Huizong and thousands of members of his family and court were taken captive, and the Song dynasty had to recreate itself in the South.
China: A History
A deep and rigorous, yet eminently accessible introduction to the political, social, and cultural development of imperial Chinese civilisation, this volume develops a number of important themes -- such as the ethnic diversity of the early empires -- that other editions omit entirely or discuss only minimally. Includes a general introduction, chronology, bibliography, illustrations, maps, and an index.
The Everlasting Empire
Established in 221 BCE, the Chinese empire lasted for 2,132 years before being replaced by the Republic of China in 1912. During its two millennia, the empire endured internal wars, foreign incursions, alien occupations, and devastating rebellions--yet fundamental institutional, sociopolitical, and cultural features of the empire remained intact. The Everlasting Empire traces the roots of the Chinese empire's exceptional longevity and unparalleled political durability, and shows how lessons from the imperial past are relevant for China today. Yuri Pines demonstrates that the empire survived and adjusted to a variety of domestic and external challenges through a peculiar combination of rigid ...
